Penelope Cruz: Filming a sex scene is ‘absurd’

As much as audiences love a good on-screen romance, Oscar-winning actress Penelope Cruz confesses that the sex scenes that go along with that don't get any easier with practice. The cover girl for the new W magazine tells the glossy that "sex scenes are very strange. Absurd, really." But that doesn't mean that 38-year-old Cruz shies away from sexy roles. She plays a businesslike prostitute in her latest film, Woody Allen's "To Rome With Love." While the movie is a comedy, Cruz admits that delivering a funny line can be just as daunting as those awkward sex scenes. "I don't play comedy as comedy. That would be the biggest trap," Cruz says. "I think about the characters and their situations. Then you don't have to worry where the laugh is going to be. But comedy is harder than drama."

Penelope Cruz's full interview in W magazine

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In real life, Cruz has been living out a romance movie with actor Javier Bardem, 43. The two appeared together in 1992's Spanish flick "Jamon Jamon," when she was just 18. Then in 2006, after dating movie stars Tom Cruise and Matthew McConaughey, Cruz lamented that she hadn't been reteamed with the actor. "It's so obvious that we would make a great onscreen couple," she said at the time. "Why are we not working together?" Cruz and Bardem finally reunited for Allen's 2008 comedy "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." Not only did the movie land her an Oscar — who says she can't do comedy?! — but Cruz also walked away with a new man. She and Bardem married in July 2010, and they welcomed a son, Leo, six months later.

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Cruz's frequent director Pedro Almodovar dishes to the mag that since Leo, his muse is even more protective of her personal life than before. "She would like to shoot the paparazzi who try to take his picture," Almodovar jokes to W. "But seriously, I always knew Penelope would be an amazing mother. She has no fear of love. You can see that in her work." The Spanish beauty's next projects are this fall's Italian drama "Ventuo al Mondo" and next year's "I'm So Excited" with Almodovar.

Read more about Cruz in the September issue of W, on newsstands August 21.

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